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Archive 5 | ← | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | → | Archive 15 |
This archive page covers approximately the dates between 9 July 2006 and 24 October 2006.
Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.
This is sort of a continuation of the discussion begun above at "Notes" section in episode articles. I've made some changes to An Unearthly Child, in an attempt to begin the process of bringing some important info that's currently in the "trivia" section into the main body of the article, in the hope that this will eventually lead to more "out-of-universe" info in the individual serials articles. I've added sections on "Production," "Transmission," and "In print," just to start things off. (I went with "In print" as opposed to "Novelization," so that the section can include relevant info from the original novel ranges, and I'm hoping someone can come up with a better word than "Transmission" that more clearly includes video and dvd releases.) I think that the Trivia sections should ultimately consist mostly of in-universe info (of the "This is the first time we see the Doctor blah blah blah" variety), with real-world info taking its place in the main article itself (alongside the plot description). I haven't actually done much besides shuffle around the existing info, but hopefully the restucturing will encourage folks to add to what's there (I'm not in a place right now where I can do much of that myself, for assorted real-life reasons). I'll hold off on doing this to more articles until other people can chime in with thoughts. -- Brian Olsen 19:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
And please, please, when people move the cast-related notes up, add the cast notes subheader and bullet them. Also, it's "References to other stories", since not all of them were episodes. I've been cleaning this up after Bryan and it's getting a little tiring. -- khaosworks ( talk • contribs) 01:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I found a good police box image, which I think is an image of a toy, but it looks great. Now, it needs a lot of work, such as transparency added so that it can go anywhere, however I haven't uploaded it here yet because I wanted your opinion first as to whether or not we can use it everywhere we need. The things that I like most about it is that it is square and is on a neutral background. It can be found here. - LA @ 20:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Source: The Who Shop International, Doctor Who, Toys & Models, Britannia Police Box Model Dark http://www.thewhoshop.com/catalogue2/product_info.php?cPath=1_167_107&products_id=740 This resin model stands about 4" high and is highly detailed, including a "pull to open" panel and St. John's Ambulance symbol. Reminscent of the shape the First Doctor's TARDIS assumed.
Ah, and their helpful Conditions of Use page states "Put here your Conditions of Use information." so that's Terms of Use sorted. ;-)
More seriously, their helpful information page says " Any queries please telephone (+44) 0 20 8471 2356 or email info@thewhoshop.co.uk ". Maybe they'd be willing to release rights to the image in exchange for a link back, i.e. Template:CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat. TransUtopian 03:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
As per WP:WAF, I'm concerned that a number of articles - the new series more flagrantly than the older stuff - are written primarily as in-universe plot summaries, with long, unsorted trivia sections that often include information of considerably more encyclopedic value than what comes above.
I think we should seriously reconsider our article formatting to offer a more encyclopedic structure - shorter summaries, more real-world information, and a wholesale abolition of fannish trivia ("The Doctor mentions being on the front lines of the Time War when Arcadia fell. The planet Arcadia was mentioned in the novel Deceit by Peter Darvill-Evans. Like all spin-off media, its canonicity in relation to the television series is unclear.")
I recognize that this breaks the standard of other television series articles. On the other hand, we've clearly taken the initiative and lead in developing FA-quality articles on fictional universes, and I think we're in a unique position among the fiction-wikiprojects to start a serious reform of the episode articles to get them away from the fanguide articles they currently are. Phil Sandifer 21:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Just wanted to add my wholehearted support for moving the info from trivia into the main body of the articles. I've tried to begin this with the original series, although I've only gotten through the first few serials (starting with "An Unearthly Child", I've gotten up to "The Time Meddler," I think). Where appropriate, I've been adding sections called "Production," "Broadcast and releases" and "In print." This was just meant to be a start, though - most of the sections are pretty skimpy, as I've only moved trivia items and haven't yet added new content. (And I won't be at all offended if someone comes up with better names for the sections.) -- Brian Olsen 16:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Hello all...I just noticed that the three userboxes related to a favorite mechanical enemy of the Doctor categorize the user of the userbox into a companion category. Well, to me that is just silly. I think that all of the Doctor userboxes, with the exception of the WikiProject one, should all categorize the users into Category:Wikipedians who like Doctor Who. I am going to change out the categories on those three userboxes and CfD the one category already created by one of those three above. Your thoughts? - LA @ 17:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I was just thinking, and it seems that the Notes/Trivia sections as they are now can be expanded into well-written sections, such as Production, Continuity, Background, etc. In other words they're notes for sections that could be written. Given the fact that all this information can be drawn together from DVD production notes, DWM and all the books written (e.g. Doctor Who: The Early Years), it wouldn't be a stretch to collate all this data and present it formally. DonQuixote 23:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I can see that a consensus has emerged here around some issues but I want to make my position on plot summaries clear before any further pruning occurs. I can see no consensus around the dramatic trimming that has occurred on my description of The Daleks and I'd like a much fuller debate before this pattern continues. Indeed, the old copy for The Daleks was by no means particularly long compared to some plot summaries. As the composer of over 75 of these plot summaries for the classic series (that's half the total) I know they lack consistency - some are very detailed indeed, not all are broken into episodes - and I can accept an argument for standardisation. Over 6 months I've varied the lengths of summaries myself, but there have never been hard and fast rules in place. However, I'd rather a much fuller debate before people take the knife (or indeed expand) more existing copy. And I resent the term "fan encyclopedia" too: I didn't set the pattern, I've just applied it and there are other (and better) contributors who write in much more detail. A few comments in no way represents a full discussion. And for the record, after a huge amount of hard work by some of us over a very long time only The Robots of Death and Shada now lack a plot summary. Can we please take step back and have a proper debate that actually includes those of us whose work is being discarded so mercilessly? Litefoot 16:52, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd happily support Khaosworks' suggestion for two types of section - there is room for both formats as they both provide radically different perspectives. In terms of article about an episode that potentially does nothing, I'd be interested to see what could be made of a story like Galaxy Four or Four to Doomsday. I'm not against the inclusion of this new perspective, I just want to ensure some debate and to make sure that we don't lose existing strengths. If we could reach consensus aroudn a dual approach featuring both times of summary then I would happily participate in ensuring all articles met that agreed format and standard. We could also move on to agree a clearer mutual guidance on the length, format and content of conventional plot summaries. As yet I'm not persuaded of the case that both types should exist in the same summary, but I'm open to be convinced. -- Litefoot 17:00, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I was away this weekend, and missed most of this conversation. I haven't delved deeply into the matter (doing things like investigating the conversation at WP:WAF's talk page), but I wanted to give my gut reaction.
I think the question we need to answer about detailed plot summaries is "How does the article benefit from having a detailed summary rather than a link to the summary at the DWRG?" I'm not sure what the answer to that question is yet, myself. On the one hand, the DWRG is a very good and useful resource, and I think it's pretty accurate. On the other hand, it is not editable, so if there are any inaccuracies or omissions there they are out of our control. I'm not sure what the copyright situation is there (I assume that the content is copyright Dominique Boies and Cameron Dixon, but I'm not sure), and we should consider the long view: will that site be accessible forever? Will it be available to downstream users? What about future non-web incarnations of Wikipedia?
Right now it seems like a link to the DWRG should satisfy any web user's need for a full episode summary, but we should consider whether that will always be the case. (It would probably also be good to compare some of the summaries there with the longer ones here, to see which are more accurate, better written, and so forth.)
In general, I support Khaosworks' more inclusionist approach — I tend to favor adding content over deletion. But I also favor improvements in presentation and style, which I think can and should be incorporated into any major revisions.
One last point: Phil calls for a Doctor Who fanwiki a couple of times above. Such a wiki does exist, here, but it's fairly skeletal (especially compared to, say, Memory Alpha). I edited there for a while before I became active here (I'm actually an admin there as well, although I haven't even edited that site since last year). I don't know what relations, if any, exist between here and there, but we might want to consider developing a relationship with that site, especially if we're about to delete a lot of content; rather than leaving it moldering and hidden in the page archives, it might be better to move it to the TARDIS Index File. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 22:14, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi, folks. Deej30 ( talk · contribs) has been editing articles about Doctor Who actors, and some of his additions have raised copyright concerns. I wanted to give the Project a heads-up, and ask for some help in going through his recent contributions to check for other problems. Two issues that I've noticed: some copyvio text added to Colin Baker (copied from here), and this image, which Genidealingwithfairuse ( talk · contribs) was concerned about. I've put a better fair use rationale on the image, which Geni says should suffice — however, Geni also wondered whether Fox or Universal might have a share of the image copyright. Does anyone know about that for certain?
I don't think that Deej30 has any ill intentions, but we should make sure that his other recent contributions are kosher with regards to copyright. I'll try to look over some tonight, but it seems Deej30 was busy over the last few days. I'd appreciate some help. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 01:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
PediaPress is a service that allows you to create a book out of selected Wikipedia articles. Is anyone interested in ordering a book of Doctor Who articles: http://pediapress.com/order/kffjljvjccdcjsry/.-- Bjw e bb ( talk) 06:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Special:Recentchangeslinked&target=Wikipedia%3AWikiProject_Doctor_Who%2Farticles for a list of changes to Doctor Who articles.-- Bjw e bb ( talk) 07:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Hello I'm relativly new here, but I've been digging through the archives and I noticed that the Personality sections of the older series Doctors were once much longer than they are currently, and closer to the length of the ninth and tenth Doctors' personality section. It seems these changes were made by Aquanostra9 ( talk · contribs) and although "see discussion" was given as the edit summary the only discussion record I could find was just saying that the changes had been made, wthout any discussion. I would like to change them back so as to me more uniform through out the Doctor pages and thought it would be a good idea to see what others had to say before making such a drastic change. Quest4pi 18:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Hey, folks. RTD has confirmed the pilot for Sarah Jane Investigates in the latest Doctor Who Magazine (his full quote is now in the SJI article, if you're interested). Time to put it in the navbox, or not? — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 01:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I created this as a sandbox, and wonder if anyone else thinks it's worthwhile exercise, or if it's a stupid idea and unutterable listcruft... ;) I'll move to main space if anyone else likes it is an idea. Tim! 18:07, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I copied it over. -- Jamdav86 21:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm working on the list of appearances for the Brigadier, and I've got a small question I'd like to throw out to the project. I've been including character appearances in original novels, but not novelizations (because they're just reworkings of a story told in another medium). But a few novelizations — specifically Downtime and The Ghosts of N-Space — were released as part of the Virgin Missing Adventures series, as if they were original novels. Should they be listed under "novels" or not? I had listed Downtime twice on the Victoria Waterfield entry, but I wasn't sure about it; I'm even less sure vis-a-vis the Brigadier, who appeared in both. (It also seems odd to include The Ghosts of N-Space, which was released as part of the Missing Adventures line, but exclude The Paradise of Death, which was the last book published as part of the old Target Books novelization series; but it also feels a bit odd to exclude them.) What do other folks think? — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 05:13, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Incidentally, for now I'm only including the Doctor Who Magazine comics in the list. Someone else can add the strips from the annuals, TV Comic, etc. later if they want (or I might get around to it eventually). — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 04:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I've been looking at the formatting for citations in articles under the project's aegis, and I noticed that we're a bit inconsistent in how we cite things. For example, when citing news items from Doctor Who Magazine's "Gallifrey Guardian" section, I noticed that someone (was it Paul?) has been putting Clayton Hickman and Tom Spilsbury in the "author" field, which makes sense, but the actual news items aren't credited to anyone. Is this a problem? Similarly, we're not very consistent about whether to use {{ cite news}} or {{ cite web}} when we're citing newspaper stories — does this matter? Should we develop some project-wide standards about citation, or would that be a case of " a foolish consistency"?
If we did, we could also address what are reliable sources in a Doctor Who context and what aren't. For example, I tend to think that Outpost Gallifrey's News Page is a reliable source for Doctor Who news, but clearly "Eye of Horus" isn't. We could also explicitly state the developing precedents about citing items from forums: in general, of course, forums are not acceptable sources, but in cases like the recently added Stephen Moffat comments on Steven Taylor and the Sam Jones discussions, I think it's OK to cite comments by notable Doctor Who writers or commentators, when their identities have been well established. It would be good to have a guideline to point to, so as to distinguish things like the Moffat comments from a random forum poster saying "OMG! I herd that the Zarbi are reterning in Series 3, and Martha's gonna get it on with a Menoptera!", which we certainly want to avoid using as a citation.
Would it be useful to work out a standard or guideline for this sort of thing? — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 19:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
As noted by SonicAD ( talk · contribs) here, Shannon's site has been forced to move from its original server. We need to start moving the massive numbers of links now... -- khaosworks ( talk • contribs) 04:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I am not a member of this project. However, The Sensorites article came up in a discussion on IRC and I complained about it. Naturally, I was told to {{ sofixit}}, so I did. All well so far.
Today, I see that the article has been edited and the "Cast" section replaced "per WP:WHO". Naturally, I clicked the link to the project page and found the part where it said about such things. I don't particularly mind a list of cast being there (though I think it's not particularly good practice). What I do mind (and hence the reason I post here) is this paragraph:
My problem with this is that it makes terrible articles. The <hr> tag is highly deprecated, and looks ugly when used in articles. The is the state I found the Sensorites in. The "Plot" section is a complete eyesore, due to no subsections. Long sections need to be split, and by episode or groups of episodes (=== Episodes one and two == for example) is a perfect way to do this, It does not clutter up the TOC, since there are few sections to start with. The other thing is that an "inconsistent look to story articles" isn't particularly undesirable. Our main focus is on individual articles, as self-contained units. If these are improved by extra headers, then that's a good thing regardless. Consistency between articles is good of course, but it's secondary to individual articles being great.
Thanks and regards, — Cel es tianpower háblame 21:10, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
This was discussed previously at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Doctor_Who/Archive_2#Serial summaries. You've now removed all distinction between episodes so it is hardly better. Tim! 18:36, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
You say the synopsis is too short to support subdivision, but that is because you replaced a reasonbly long description with a terse badly written one. I think the best thing would be to ask the original writer (Litefoot I believe) if he wants to revert. I don't really care if it has hr's in it, but the new text isn't very good. Tim! 17:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I've just gotten back to the lists of appearances for the companions, after being distracted by a content dispute on a non-Doctor Who article for a while. I noticed that an anonymous editor has changed the formatting for several new series characters today — see this edit on Jackie Tyler, for example — and I think it's an improvement. Unless anyone disagrees, I think I'll start applying this formatting to the lists of appearances (I'm working on Sarah Jane Smith right now). However, I may not have time right away to go back and amend all the other classic series companions who already have such lists; if anyone wants to take the initiative on that it would be great. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 21:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Guess nobody cares about that, which is fine. An anon went through and formatted the old articles into the new style, which I think looks good. We've still got some inconsistency about how to list novel appearances, though: compare Susan Foreman#Novels, Sarah Jane Smith#Novels and Vislor Turlough#Novels. Does anyone have a strong preference between these three styles (with novel lines listed as subheaders, listed in bold but not as subheaders, or excluded completely)? — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 02:45, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd go for lines, myself. -- Jamdav86 16:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Someone named Paul Williams wrote a short story in Short Trips: Past Tense. The article used to link to Paul Williams, which is a disambiguation page. I assumed that this Paul Williams was neither Paul Williams (Crawdaddy! creator), who has written about science fiction (Theodore Sturgeon and Philip K. Dick), nor Paul O. Williams (who did write science fiction in the '80s, but seems now to be focused mainly on haiku). But was that assumption correct? I don't have a copy of Past Tense to see if it has an author bio — could someone who does have it check, please? And if it is a different Paul Williams (as I assume), he probably ought to have a more specific disambiguation than Paul Williams (writer), since there are (at least) three other writers by that name. If he's British he could be Paul Williams (British writer), but I didn't want to assume that. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 00:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I thought I would bring it to the group's attention that yesterday I nominated this page for deletion. (See nomination page here). I thought I'd put a note here as some of you may like to comment / vote. Angmering 14:36, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I've been doing some work on this article over the part couple of days, expanding it, adding citations and so forth. I'm hoping to get it up to featured article standard, along the lines of the Sydney Newman piece, although it's not there yet. For one thing it needs more on her time at Thames and Euston — does anybody know any good sources, reference books etc, that go into this at all?
Also, if anybody has a free, non-copyright image of Lambert we could use — taken at a convention or what have you — that would probably be advantageous. Angmering 21:50, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
As you all probably know, there is a new series of Eighth Doctor adventures, produced by Big Finish, starting around Christmas on BBC7; these will feature a new companion and be more like the current TV series in format. The information is from the latest DWM, which I haven't received yet, but the salient facts are also here. Would it be premature to create article pages for these audios, given that we have cast lists already, or should we wait until we have more confirmation from BBC7 and/or Big Finish, or until it's closer to broadcast time? — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 01:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to direct project members to the question I've raised here, namely whether it's time to reconsider having an article for the 2007 series. I've opposed having such an article in the past, but given that we may not have episode titles until later than we did last year, and we've got quite a bit of well-cited info which is taking up a lot of room in List of Doctor Who serials, despite not being really part of that list, I think the time has come. Discussion here please. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 01:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I was wondering today, after adding the credits for voicing Rose and Mickey in the Japanese dub to Maaya Sakamoto and Setsuji Satō's pages and I was wondering if it would be worth adding such voice actors to the WikiProject? These are the only two I know that have wikipages (The Doctor - Kazuhiro Yamaji, and Jackie - Masako Inobe don't seem to have one yet) and I don't know the names of any other language VAs. What do you guys think? -- GracieLizzie 15:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
You're asking whether to put the project notice on the dub voice actors' talk pages? That sounds harmless to me, although I don't really feel strongly about it one way or the other. Based on the articles, Sakamoto seems fairly notable in her own right, so you could probably also add a short note to the Rose Tyler article. However, I think that full lists of dub actors would be too much: for example, I don't think that it's a good idea to list voice actors on each episode page. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 17:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to post about this again, but I thought I'd drop a quick reminder about Verity Lambert being up as a featured article candidate, as it's been there for five days now and attracted a grand total of one response. Which was a support, admittedly, but it's not going to pass with only one vote. I suppose people simply aren't really that interested in articles about television producers.
Anyway, I wouldn't expect anybody to automatically support it simply because it's a Doctor Who-related article, but if you have a moment do please give it a read and vote accordingly. Even if it's an oppose, it'll keep the debate going and hopefully lead to improvements which will see the article pass and us able to add another featured article to our project's honours! Angmering 17:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
This category has been listed for deletion (AGAIN) at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 September 29. Please participate in the "discussion". Tim! 22:10, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be a great idea to add to the episode summaries a line for time period and place. By time period I mean the area(s) of time that the Doctor travels to in that episode. An example would be unearthly child took place in 1960s Earth and 100,000 Earth, or "End of the World" took place in the year 5 billion.. etc.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.118.9.154 ( talk • contribs)
With the recent edits to Time Lord, I'm thinking that there's enough information to spin-off an article. I've created Regeneration (Doctor Who) with a Conceptual History section and shifted the bulk of information that was formerly in Time Lord to it (as well as the Romana's Regeneration section of Romana).
I've left Doctor (Doctor Who) largely untouched because those sections appear to be Doctor-specific, and my envisioning of "Regeneration (Doctor Who)" is as just a general discussion about regeneration. I'm also not sure how to move the stuff from "Doctor (Doctor Who)" over without making it look messy, so I've left it as the main article for "The Doctor's regenerations" section in "Regeneration (Doctor Who)". Please discuss possible refinements at the talk page if you can think of them. -- khaosworks ( talk • contribs) 18:18, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
A new editor recently added what looks like a full bibliography to Terrance Dicks; unfortunately, it's not very well organized and is mostly unformatted. I don't have time right now to fix the list (organizing it by series, linking the novels that have pages to them, etc.), but if somebody's looking for a project and took this on, they'd get a serving or two of undying gratitude. :) — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 23:08, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Project members may be interested to know that Lengths of science fiction movie and television series has been nominated for AfD. The discussion is here. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 23:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Would editors kindly help me put Template:OG on every Doctor Who serial or episode page? I've done the new series, but the 1st-7th Doctors remain uncompleted. -- Thelb 4 20:59, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:
and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Greetings. I've just created a small article for this term. I was prompted to create by its use in the Star Trek universe but a bit of research showed that it's a Doctor Who term as well, from the Big Finish radio plays. More research informed the Doctor Who section of my article, but someone with more Whoniverse expertise may wish to edit and expand this section. Maximoff77 22:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Difference of opinion as to which screenshot to use between myself and Bastique ( talk · contribs). I've put up a detailed explanation at Talk:Everything Changes (Torchwood) as to why I prefer the one I chose. Do weigh in on this, even if it's just to tell me I'm an asshole (or more civilly, that you would prefer Bastique's screenshot). -- khaosworks ( talk • contribs) 19:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | → | Archive 15 |
This archive page covers approximately the dates between 9 July 2006 and 24 October 2006.
Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.
This is sort of a continuation of the discussion begun above at "Notes" section in episode articles. I've made some changes to An Unearthly Child, in an attempt to begin the process of bringing some important info that's currently in the "trivia" section into the main body of the article, in the hope that this will eventually lead to more "out-of-universe" info in the individual serials articles. I've added sections on "Production," "Transmission," and "In print," just to start things off. (I went with "In print" as opposed to "Novelization," so that the section can include relevant info from the original novel ranges, and I'm hoping someone can come up with a better word than "Transmission" that more clearly includes video and dvd releases.) I think that the Trivia sections should ultimately consist mostly of in-universe info (of the "This is the first time we see the Doctor blah blah blah" variety), with real-world info taking its place in the main article itself (alongside the plot description). I haven't actually done much besides shuffle around the existing info, but hopefully the restucturing will encourage folks to add to what's there (I'm not in a place right now where I can do much of that myself, for assorted real-life reasons). I'll hold off on doing this to more articles until other people can chime in with thoughts. -- Brian Olsen 19:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
And please, please, when people move the cast-related notes up, add the cast notes subheader and bullet them. Also, it's "References to other stories", since not all of them were episodes. I've been cleaning this up after Bryan and it's getting a little tiring. -- khaosworks ( talk • contribs) 01:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I found a good police box image, which I think is an image of a toy, but it looks great. Now, it needs a lot of work, such as transparency added so that it can go anywhere, however I haven't uploaded it here yet because I wanted your opinion first as to whether or not we can use it everywhere we need. The things that I like most about it is that it is square and is on a neutral background. It can be found here. - LA @ 20:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Source: The Who Shop International, Doctor Who, Toys & Models, Britannia Police Box Model Dark http://www.thewhoshop.com/catalogue2/product_info.php?cPath=1_167_107&products_id=740 This resin model stands about 4" high and is highly detailed, including a "pull to open" panel and St. John's Ambulance symbol. Reminscent of the shape the First Doctor's TARDIS assumed.
Ah, and their helpful Conditions of Use page states "Put here your Conditions of Use information." so that's Terms of Use sorted. ;-)
More seriously, their helpful information page says " Any queries please telephone (+44) 0 20 8471 2356 or email info@thewhoshop.co.uk ". Maybe they'd be willing to release rights to the image in exchange for a link back, i.e. Template:CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat. TransUtopian 03:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
As per WP:WAF, I'm concerned that a number of articles - the new series more flagrantly than the older stuff - are written primarily as in-universe plot summaries, with long, unsorted trivia sections that often include information of considerably more encyclopedic value than what comes above.
I think we should seriously reconsider our article formatting to offer a more encyclopedic structure - shorter summaries, more real-world information, and a wholesale abolition of fannish trivia ("The Doctor mentions being on the front lines of the Time War when Arcadia fell. The planet Arcadia was mentioned in the novel Deceit by Peter Darvill-Evans. Like all spin-off media, its canonicity in relation to the television series is unclear.")
I recognize that this breaks the standard of other television series articles. On the other hand, we've clearly taken the initiative and lead in developing FA-quality articles on fictional universes, and I think we're in a unique position among the fiction-wikiprojects to start a serious reform of the episode articles to get them away from the fanguide articles they currently are. Phil Sandifer 21:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Just wanted to add my wholehearted support for moving the info from trivia into the main body of the articles. I've tried to begin this with the original series, although I've only gotten through the first few serials (starting with "An Unearthly Child", I've gotten up to "The Time Meddler," I think). Where appropriate, I've been adding sections called "Production," "Broadcast and releases" and "In print." This was just meant to be a start, though - most of the sections are pretty skimpy, as I've only moved trivia items and haven't yet added new content. (And I won't be at all offended if someone comes up with better names for the sections.) -- Brian Olsen 16:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Hello all...I just noticed that the three userboxes related to a favorite mechanical enemy of the Doctor categorize the user of the userbox into a companion category. Well, to me that is just silly. I think that all of the Doctor userboxes, with the exception of the WikiProject one, should all categorize the users into Category:Wikipedians who like Doctor Who. I am going to change out the categories on those three userboxes and CfD the one category already created by one of those three above. Your thoughts? - LA @ 17:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I was just thinking, and it seems that the Notes/Trivia sections as they are now can be expanded into well-written sections, such as Production, Continuity, Background, etc. In other words they're notes for sections that could be written. Given the fact that all this information can be drawn together from DVD production notes, DWM and all the books written (e.g. Doctor Who: The Early Years), it wouldn't be a stretch to collate all this data and present it formally. DonQuixote 23:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I can see that a consensus has emerged here around some issues but I want to make my position on plot summaries clear before any further pruning occurs. I can see no consensus around the dramatic trimming that has occurred on my description of The Daleks and I'd like a much fuller debate before this pattern continues. Indeed, the old copy for The Daleks was by no means particularly long compared to some plot summaries. As the composer of over 75 of these plot summaries for the classic series (that's half the total) I know they lack consistency - some are very detailed indeed, not all are broken into episodes - and I can accept an argument for standardisation. Over 6 months I've varied the lengths of summaries myself, but there have never been hard and fast rules in place. However, I'd rather a much fuller debate before people take the knife (or indeed expand) more existing copy. And I resent the term "fan encyclopedia" too: I didn't set the pattern, I've just applied it and there are other (and better) contributors who write in much more detail. A few comments in no way represents a full discussion. And for the record, after a huge amount of hard work by some of us over a very long time only The Robots of Death and Shada now lack a plot summary. Can we please take step back and have a proper debate that actually includes those of us whose work is being discarded so mercilessly? Litefoot 16:52, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd happily support Khaosworks' suggestion for two types of section - there is room for both formats as they both provide radically different perspectives. In terms of article about an episode that potentially does nothing, I'd be interested to see what could be made of a story like Galaxy Four or Four to Doomsday. I'm not against the inclusion of this new perspective, I just want to ensure some debate and to make sure that we don't lose existing strengths. If we could reach consensus aroudn a dual approach featuring both times of summary then I would happily participate in ensuring all articles met that agreed format and standard. We could also move on to agree a clearer mutual guidance on the length, format and content of conventional plot summaries. As yet I'm not persuaded of the case that both types should exist in the same summary, but I'm open to be convinced. -- Litefoot 17:00, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I was away this weekend, and missed most of this conversation. I haven't delved deeply into the matter (doing things like investigating the conversation at WP:WAF's talk page), but I wanted to give my gut reaction.
I think the question we need to answer about detailed plot summaries is "How does the article benefit from having a detailed summary rather than a link to the summary at the DWRG?" I'm not sure what the answer to that question is yet, myself. On the one hand, the DWRG is a very good and useful resource, and I think it's pretty accurate. On the other hand, it is not editable, so if there are any inaccuracies or omissions there they are out of our control. I'm not sure what the copyright situation is there (I assume that the content is copyright Dominique Boies and Cameron Dixon, but I'm not sure), and we should consider the long view: will that site be accessible forever? Will it be available to downstream users? What about future non-web incarnations of Wikipedia?
Right now it seems like a link to the DWRG should satisfy any web user's need for a full episode summary, but we should consider whether that will always be the case. (It would probably also be good to compare some of the summaries there with the longer ones here, to see which are more accurate, better written, and so forth.)
In general, I support Khaosworks' more inclusionist approach — I tend to favor adding content over deletion. But I also favor improvements in presentation and style, which I think can and should be incorporated into any major revisions.
One last point: Phil calls for a Doctor Who fanwiki a couple of times above. Such a wiki does exist, here, but it's fairly skeletal (especially compared to, say, Memory Alpha). I edited there for a while before I became active here (I'm actually an admin there as well, although I haven't even edited that site since last year). I don't know what relations, if any, exist between here and there, but we might want to consider developing a relationship with that site, especially if we're about to delete a lot of content; rather than leaving it moldering and hidden in the page archives, it might be better to move it to the TARDIS Index File. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 22:14, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi, folks. Deej30 ( talk · contribs) has been editing articles about Doctor Who actors, and some of his additions have raised copyright concerns. I wanted to give the Project a heads-up, and ask for some help in going through his recent contributions to check for other problems. Two issues that I've noticed: some copyvio text added to Colin Baker (copied from here), and this image, which Genidealingwithfairuse ( talk · contribs) was concerned about. I've put a better fair use rationale on the image, which Geni says should suffice — however, Geni also wondered whether Fox or Universal might have a share of the image copyright. Does anyone know about that for certain?
I don't think that Deej30 has any ill intentions, but we should make sure that his other recent contributions are kosher with regards to copyright. I'll try to look over some tonight, but it seems Deej30 was busy over the last few days. I'd appreciate some help. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 01:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
PediaPress is a service that allows you to create a book out of selected Wikipedia articles. Is anyone interested in ordering a book of Doctor Who articles: http://pediapress.com/order/kffjljvjccdcjsry/.-- Bjw e bb ( talk) 06:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Special:Recentchangeslinked&target=Wikipedia%3AWikiProject_Doctor_Who%2Farticles for a list of changes to Doctor Who articles.-- Bjw e bb ( talk) 07:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Hello I'm relativly new here, but I've been digging through the archives and I noticed that the Personality sections of the older series Doctors were once much longer than they are currently, and closer to the length of the ninth and tenth Doctors' personality section. It seems these changes were made by Aquanostra9 ( talk · contribs) and although "see discussion" was given as the edit summary the only discussion record I could find was just saying that the changes had been made, wthout any discussion. I would like to change them back so as to me more uniform through out the Doctor pages and thought it would be a good idea to see what others had to say before making such a drastic change. Quest4pi 18:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Hey, folks. RTD has confirmed the pilot for Sarah Jane Investigates in the latest Doctor Who Magazine (his full quote is now in the SJI article, if you're interested). Time to put it in the navbox, or not? — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 01:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I created this as a sandbox, and wonder if anyone else thinks it's worthwhile exercise, or if it's a stupid idea and unutterable listcruft... ;) I'll move to main space if anyone else likes it is an idea. Tim! 18:07, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I copied it over. -- Jamdav86 21:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm working on the list of appearances for the Brigadier, and I've got a small question I'd like to throw out to the project. I've been including character appearances in original novels, but not novelizations (because they're just reworkings of a story told in another medium). But a few novelizations — specifically Downtime and The Ghosts of N-Space — were released as part of the Virgin Missing Adventures series, as if they were original novels. Should they be listed under "novels" or not? I had listed Downtime twice on the Victoria Waterfield entry, but I wasn't sure about it; I'm even less sure vis-a-vis the Brigadier, who appeared in both. (It also seems odd to include The Ghosts of N-Space, which was released as part of the Missing Adventures line, but exclude The Paradise of Death, which was the last book published as part of the old Target Books novelization series; but it also feels a bit odd to exclude them.) What do other folks think? — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 05:13, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Incidentally, for now I'm only including the Doctor Who Magazine comics in the list. Someone else can add the strips from the annuals, TV Comic, etc. later if they want (or I might get around to it eventually). — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 04:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I've been looking at the formatting for citations in articles under the project's aegis, and I noticed that we're a bit inconsistent in how we cite things. For example, when citing news items from Doctor Who Magazine's "Gallifrey Guardian" section, I noticed that someone (was it Paul?) has been putting Clayton Hickman and Tom Spilsbury in the "author" field, which makes sense, but the actual news items aren't credited to anyone. Is this a problem? Similarly, we're not very consistent about whether to use {{ cite news}} or {{ cite web}} when we're citing newspaper stories — does this matter? Should we develop some project-wide standards about citation, or would that be a case of " a foolish consistency"?
If we did, we could also address what are reliable sources in a Doctor Who context and what aren't. For example, I tend to think that Outpost Gallifrey's News Page is a reliable source for Doctor Who news, but clearly "Eye of Horus" isn't. We could also explicitly state the developing precedents about citing items from forums: in general, of course, forums are not acceptable sources, but in cases like the recently added Stephen Moffat comments on Steven Taylor and the Sam Jones discussions, I think it's OK to cite comments by notable Doctor Who writers or commentators, when their identities have been well established. It would be good to have a guideline to point to, so as to distinguish things like the Moffat comments from a random forum poster saying "OMG! I herd that the Zarbi are reterning in Series 3, and Martha's gonna get it on with a Menoptera!", which we certainly want to avoid using as a citation.
Would it be useful to work out a standard or guideline for this sort of thing? — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 19:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
As noted by SonicAD ( talk · contribs) here, Shannon's site has been forced to move from its original server. We need to start moving the massive numbers of links now... -- khaosworks ( talk • contribs) 04:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I am not a member of this project. However, The Sensorites article came up in a discussion on IRC and I complained about it. Naturally, I was told to {{ sofixit}}, so I did. All well so far.
Today, I see that the article has been edited and the "Cast" section replaced "per WP:WHO". Naturally, I clicked the link to the project page and found the part where it said about such things. I don't particularly mind a list of cast being there (though I think it's not particularly good practice). What I do mind (and hence the reason I post here) is this paragraph:
My problem with this is that it makes terrible articles. The <hr> tag is highly deprecated, and looks ugly when used in articles. The is the state I found the Sensorites in. The "Plot" section is a complete eyesore, due to no subsections. Long sections need to be split, and by episode or groups of episodes (=== Episodes one and two == for example) is a perfect way to do this, It does not clutter up the TOC, since there are few sections to start with. The other thing is that an "inconsistent look to story articles" isn't particularly undesirable. Our main focus is on individual articles, as self-contained units. If these are improved by extra headers, then that's a good thing regardless. Consistency between articles is good of course, but it's secondary to individual articles being great.
Thanks and regards, — Cel es tianpower háblame 21:10, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
This was discussed previously at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Doctor_Who/Archive_2#Serial summaries. You've now removed all distinction between episodes so it is hardly better. Tim! 18:36, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
You say the synopsis is too short to support subdivision, but that is because you replaced a reasonbly long description with a terse badly written one. I think the best thing would be to ask the original writer (Litefoot I believe) if he wants to revert. I don't really care if it has hr's in it, but the new text isn't very good. Tim! 17:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I've just gotten back to the lists of appearances for the companions, after being distracted by a content dispute on a non-Doctor Who article for a while. I noticed that an anonymous editor has changed the formatting for several new series characters today — see this edit on Jackie Tyler, for example — and I think it's an improvement. Unless anyone disagrees, I think I'll start applying this formatting to the lists of appearances (I'm working on Sarah Jane Smith right now). However, I may not have time right away to go back and amend all the other classic series companions who already have such lists; if anyone wants to take the initiative on that it would be great. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 21:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Guess nobody cares about that, which is fine. An anon went through and formatted the old articles into the new style, which I think looks good. We've still got some inconsistency about how to list novel appearances, though: compare Susan Foreman#Novels, Sarah Jane Smith#Novels and Vislor Turlough#Novels. Does anyone have a strong preference between these three styles (with novel lines listed as subheaders, listed in bold but not as subheaders, or excluded completely)? — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 02:45, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd go for lines, myself. -- Jamdav86 16:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Someone named Paul Williams wrote a short story in Short Trips: Past Tense. The article used to link to Paul Williams, which is a disambiguation page. I assumed that this Paul Williams was neither Paul Williams (Crawdaddy! creator), who has written about science fiction (Theodore Sturgeon and Philip K. Dick), nor Paul O. Williams (who did write science fiction in the '80s, but seems now to be focused mainly on haiku). But was that assumption correct? I don't have a copy of Past Tense to see if it has an author bio — could someone who does have it check, please? And if it is a different Paul Williams (as I assume), he probably ought to have a more specific disambiguation than Paul Williams (writer), since there are (at least) three other writers by that name. If he's British he could be Paul Williams (British writer), but I didn't want to assume that. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 00:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I thought I would bring it to the group's attention that yesterday I nominated this page for deletion. (See nomination page here). I thought I'd put a note here as some of you may like to comment / vote. Angmering 14:36, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I've been doing some work on this article over the part couple of days, expanding it, adding citations and so forth. I'm hoping to get it up to featured article standard, along the lines of the Sydney Newman piece, although it's not there yet. For one thing it needs more on her time at Thames and Euston — does anybody know any good sources, reference books etc, that go into this at all?
Also, if anybody has a free, non-copyright image of Lambert we could use — taken at a convention or what have you — that would probably be advantageous. Angmering 21:50, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
As you all probably know, there is a new series of Eighth Doctor adventures, produced by Big Finish, starting around Christmas on BBC7; these will feature a new companion and be more like the current TV series in format. The information is from the latest DWM, which I haven't received yet, but the salient facts are also here. Would it be premature to create article pages for these audios, given that we have cast lists already, or should we wait until we have more confirmation from BBC7 and/or Big Finish, or until it's closer to broadcast time? — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 01:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to direct project members to the question I've raised here, namely whether it's time to reconsider having an article for the 2007 series. I've opposed having such an article in the past, but given that we may not have episode titles until later than we did last year, and we've got quite a bit of well-cited info which is taking up a lot of room in List of Doctor Who serials, despite not being really part of that list, I think the time has come. Discussion here please. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 01:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I was wondering today, after adding the credits for voicing Rose and Mickey in the Japanese dub to Maaya Sakamoto and Setsuji Satō's pages and I was wondering if it would be worth adding such voice actors to the WikiProject? These are the only two I know that have wikipages (The Doctor - Kazuhiro Yamaji, and Jackie - Masako Inobe don't seem to have one yet) and I don't know the names of any other language VAs. What do you guys think? -- GracieLizzie 15:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
You're asking whether to put the project notice on the dub voice actors' talk pages? That sounds harmless to me, although I don't really feel strongly about it one way or the other. Based on the articles, Sakamoto seems fairly notable in her own right, so you could probably also add a short note to the Rose Tyler article. However, I think that full lists of dub actors would be too much: for example, I don't think that it's a good idea to list voice actors on each episode page. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 17:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to post about this again, but I thought I'd drop a quick reminder about Verity Lambert being up as a featured article candidate, as it's been there for five days now and attracted a grand total of one response. Which was a support, admittedly, but it's not going to pass with only one vote. I suppose people simply aren't really that interested in articles about television producers.
Anyway, I wouldn't expect anybody to automatically support it simply because it's a Doctor Who-related article, but if you have a moment do please give it a read and vote accordingly. Even if it's an oppose, it'll keep the debate going and hopefully lead to improvements which will see the article pass and us able to add another featured article to our project's honours! Angmering 17:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
This category has been listed for deletion (AGAIN) at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 September 29. Please participate in the "discussion". Tim! 22:10, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be a great idea to add to the episode summaries a line for time period and place. By time period I mean the area(s) of time that the Doctor travels to in that episode. An example would be unearthly child took place in 1960s Earth and 100,000 Earth, or "End of the World" took place in the year 5 billion.. etc.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.118.9.154 ( talk • contribs)
With the recent edits to Time Lord, I'm thinking that there's enough information to spin-off an article. I've created Regeneration (Doctor Who) with a Conceptual History section and shifted the bulk of information that was formerly in Time Lord to it (as well as the Romana's Regeneration section of Romana).
I've left Doctor (Doctor Who) largely untouched because those sections appear to be Doctor-specific, and my envisioning of "Regeneration (Doctor Who)" is as just a general discussion about regeneration. I'm also not sure how to move the stuff from "Doctor (Doctor Who)" over without making it look messy, so I've left it as the main article for "The Doctor's regenerations" section in "Regeneration (Doctor Who)". Please discuss possible refinements at the talk page if you can think of them. -- khaosworks ( talk • contribs) 18:18, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
A new editor recently added what looks like a full bibliography to Terrance Dicks; unfortunately, it's not very well organized and is mostly unformatted. I don't have time right now to fix the list (organizing it by series, linking the novels that have pages to them, etc.), but if somebody's looking for a project and took this on, they'd get a serving or two of undying gratitude. :) — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 23:08, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Project members may be interested to know that Lengths of science fiction movie and television series has been nominated for AfD. The discussion is here. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 23:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Would editors kindly help me put Template:OG on every Doctor Who serial or episode page? I've done the new series, but the 1st-7th Doctors remain uncompleted. -- Thelb 4 20:59, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:
and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Greetings. I've just created a small article for this term. I was prompted to create by its use in the Star Trek universe but a bit of research showed that it's a Doctor Who term as well, from the Big Finish radio plays. More research informed the Doctor Who section of my article, but someone with more Whoniverse expertise may wish to edit and expand this section. Maximoff77 22:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Difference of opinion as to which screenshot to use between myself and Bastique ( talk · contribs). I've put up a detailed explanation at Talk:Everything Changes (Torchwood) as to why I prefer the one I chose. Do weigh in on this, even if it's just to tell me I'm an asshole (or more civilly, that you would prefer Bastique's screenshot). -- khaosworks ( talk • contribs) 19:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)